


Etiolatry

by Anonymous



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Corruption, Dark Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dark!Aziraphale, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Good Omens Kink Meme, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23724955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: From the Good Omens Kink Meme Prompt:Crowley is brutally raped in a way that is very traumatic for him. Very violent and painful and cruel. They leave him broken, physically and emotionally.Aziraphale finds him and is very gentle and careful, taking him home and carefully, gently cleaning him up, tending to his injuries.Even when the touching is... a little too much for Crowley. Even when he's asking Aziraphale to stop."Shhh," Aziraphale soothes him, reassures him, he's just taking care of him, just helping him, "just relax, just be still, I've got you..."But ultimately he can't resist Crowley like this - vulnerable and desperate and broken - and he violates him a second time.And Crowley tries to push him away, begs him to stop, in tears, but he's too weak and injured and devastated to fight him off. And when it's over, Aziraphale holds him and comforts him and promises him, he's safe now and he'll always take care of him.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 161
Collections: Good Omens Kink Meme Anonymous





	Etiolatry

Aziraphale had been on earth for a very, very long time.

Long enough to see a lot of change. Long enough to see the very contours of change itself.

All things changed. Stones, plants, creatures. Given enough time, all things would be shaped and reshaped.

Aziraphale included.

Something else Aziraphale understood about change was that a thing left in its true environment changed for the better. It would grow stronger, healthier, brighter.

But a thing in a new place, a thing living somewhere it wasn’t meant to be - that change was strange, and sickly, and left everything a twisted facsimile of itself.

Aziraphale thought often of the little creeping things that had once walked under sunlight, then found themselves in dark caves. They survived, but without the sun they became pale, blind, and sluggish. Imitations of their former selves, retaining some sense of what they had been, but weaker, corrupted. What had once been a lizard, or a beetle, was now a ghostly, slimy thing; eyeless, hiding in the damp and the dark.

Aziraphale had once been a guardian. A protector.

He had stood at the gate, brandished a sword of righteous flame, and watched over his charges as God commanded.

Aziraphale was no longer the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. Six thousand years away from his post had taken the thing inside him - the protector’s heart, the guardian’s call - and turned it sightless and fleshy, made it a thing-that-once-was.

This is why, instead of watching over the gate of Eden, Aziraphale was instead standing on the street outside of Crowley’s flat, invisible to any onlookers. His gaze was trained on the demon’s bedroom window, waiting to see the familiar serpentine form pass by.

Crowley had become his, truly his, nearly three years ago. Aziraphale had felt this shriveled thing stir inside his soul, this ancient purpose manifesting as some sinister need to watch over Crowley in all and every way. He had fought it for a while, then told himself it was a misunderstanding, just an overzealous care.

What could it hurt, he told himself, to just watch over Crowley? To follow him, to be there, whenever possible?

And so he appointed himself Crowley’s guardian. When the two were together, Aziraphale doted on him, attentive to every tiny flicker across the demon’s face. And when they were apart, Aziraphale often took it upon himself to stand guard somewhere, unseen.

Crowley would be annoyed if he knew. So Aziraphale made sure he didn’t know. And if he occasionally learned something that could be deployed later, a strategic secret, well, Aziraphale simply counted it a strength.

This day, Aziraphale had finished up his day’s business at the bookstore and headed over to Crowley’s flat, positioning himself in one of his favorite spots, where he could see a sliver of Crowley’s bedroom through the window.

Something was wrong, however. Crowley usually had the lights on at this hour, was typically bouncing around getting up to whatever private mischief was on his agenda for the evening. Aziraphale knew he was home, could sense his presence even from this distance. But it was muted, his demonic energies drained somehow.

Aziraphale cursed himself for not getting here earlier. Did he really need to spend all day at his bookshop? Couldn’t he just spend all his time looking out for what he truly loved, the possession he prized above all his books?

He would do so tomorrow, he resolved. As he edged closer to Crowley’s building, hoping to get a better sense for what was bothering the demon, he ran through a mental checklist of what he would need to do to shutter the bookshop and keep Crowley from finding out that he had realigned his daily priorities.

All such thoughts fled from him, however, when he saw a dark shape slinking out of Crowley’s building - not through the door, but straight through the wall. It had a malevolent aura about it, and Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, bringing the figure into focus. A demon. A nasty one, not like his lovely Crowley; a filthy and cruel denizen of Hell.

What had such a thing been doing in Crowley’s apartment? Crowley was retired from his Hellish duties. Was it possible he was still working with them? Righteous indignation surged through Aziraphale. He was right to be keeping an eye on Crowley, right to be watching what the demon did when he thought he was alone.

Aziraphale pushed his way into the building, dismissing all the human-made doors and locks with a miraculous wave of his hand, and sidestepping Crowley’s wards easily. He stepped angrily into Crowley’s bedroom, ready to scold the demon for his clandestine dealings, when he was hit with a wave of anguish unlike anything he’d ever felt coming from Crowley.

All his irritation with Crowley dissolved as Aziraphale took in the scene. The bedsheets were rumpled and Crowley was tangled amongst them, curled on his side like a little shrimp. The room smelled of sweat, and fear, and something else, something familiar but hard to instantly place, so different was the context.

It smelled of sex.

Horrified, Aziraphale rushed to the bed. “Crowley, Crowley darling, what’s happened?”

Crowley opened his eyes and looked up at Aziraphale, startled. “Az...what are you doing here?”

Aziraphale pulled back the blankets, trying to understand how badly Crowley had been hurt. Crowley tugged feebly at the sheets, trying to keep himself covered, but Aziraphale was much stronger.

The angel gasped at the sight laid bare before him. Crowley’s shirt was ripped open, bruises blooming on his chest and neck. His trousers were entirely gone, and he was nude from the waist down. Blood smeared the inside of his thighs, and a foul, demonic substance pooled on the sheets.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured.

Crowley curled up more tightly, his arms wrapped over his face, his breathing thin and ragged.

Aziraphale leaned down and lifted Crowley into his arms, then snapped his fingers and replaced the soiled bedsheets. Still holding Crowley, Aziraphale got into the now clean bed, letting Crowley remain in a shuddering ball against him.

“It’s alright, love, I’m here,” Aziraphale soothed. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Crowley clung to Aziraphale, his hands fisted in the angel’s shirt.

“Who did this, Crowley?”

The demon buried his face in Aziraphale’s chest and sniffled. “He - he - some demon, enforcer type, up from Hell...” Crowley hiccuped through his tears. “Wasn’t supposed to get in here…Supposed to be safe here...They knew…”

Aziraphale stroked Crowley’s back, rubbing gentle circles over Crowley’s shaking body. “It’s okay, love. You’re safe now.”

It enraged Aziraphale that someone else had dared to lay hands on what was his. That something under his protection had been harmed. If only he had been here sooner, he seethed. He knew he should have been watching Crowley more closely.

“Hurts,” Crowley whimpered, squirming weakly in Aziraphale’s lap.

“Oh! Of course, dear. Let me, let me.” Aziraphale shifted Crowley onto the bed next to him. Laid out like this, the demon looked so helpless, so vulnerable. Something colorless and starved stirred inside Aziraphale at the sight.

Aziraphale snapped his fingers again and a cloth appeared in his hand, warm and wet. He ran it over Crowley’s belly, his thighs, cleaning the blood and demon spend with steady strokes over Crowley’s skin.

Crowley winced when Aziraphale reached closer between his legs, wiping the cloth over his poor, abused hole.

“Sshhh,” Aziraphale soothed, returning to the same spot. “I’ve got to get you clean, love. It’s alright.”

Crowley whined and twisted, trying to pull away from the touch.

Aziraphale laid a hand on Crowley’s hip, holding him still. He returned to that tender spot, letting Crowley kick and make little pathetic noises of protest as he worked.

There was so much, so much filth, so much evidence of the violation that had been done here. Aziraphale hated it. He resolved to tear every atom of it from of his precious, his beloved, his Crowley.

Aziraphale wrapped the cloth around one finger and pressed, intent on pulling out what had been left inside.

Crowley made a pained moan and swatted at Aziraphale’s hand with his own. “‘Ziraphale, don’t…”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. He could not stop until Crowley was fully restored. Again his cloth covered finger dipped inside Crowley, making the demon cry out.

“Stop, angel,” Crowley pleaded. “‘s enough, please.”

“Just a bit more,” Aziraphale murmured, miracling the cloth clean before continuing. He could just miracle Crowley clean, but that seemed wrong, somehow. He wouldn’t be there, physically; wouldn’t be doing it himself, present, the guardian walking his rampart.

Crowley was his post. His to protect. His.

Aziraphale could hardly stand the presence of another, here in the most intimate place that should have belonged only to him.

_Take off your sandals, the LORD said, because you are standing on holy ground._

Someone else had stood here. Aziraphale had left his post and someone else had stepped in, had desecrated his holy ground.

He was determined to sanctify it again.

Aziraphale slid two fingers inside Crowley this time, twisting and curling them before dragging the soiled cloth out. Crowley wailed, his amber eyes wide with pain and confusion.

Then the angel tossed the damp cloth aside, letting it fall to the floor with a wet slap. He bent over the prone Crowley, and the instinct that had been a guardian’s and was now something-that-was-once gripped him like sharp pincers.

Aziraphale leaned down and kissed Crowley. Crowley stiffened, startled, his lips unyielding as Aziraphale pressed against them. The angel reached up to cup Crowley’s cheek, a lover’s embrace that also prevented him from turning away.

“No,” Crowley mumbled.

“It’s alright,” Aziraphale whispered close into Crowley’s ear. “I’ve got you now, it’s just me.”

“Just wanna sleep.” Crowley reached down at his side, grabbing at the blankets.

Aziraphale kicked the covers away, off the bed entirely. “You don’t need those, it’s okay. You’ve got me, I’m here.”

Crowley closed his eyes, bit his lip, shook his head.

“I’ll make it all right,” Aziraphale cooed. “I’ll fix it.”

Crowley made a noise like glass breaking, like the first chirp of a new-hatched bird. Under Aziraphale’s hands, he felt so fragile, so small.

So in need of protection.

Aziraphale slid his hand back between Crowley’s legs, probing. Crowley tucked his chin down into his shoulder, face buried in the pillow. With his other hand, Aziraphale stroked Crowley’s head, ran firm fingers through the demon’s red curls and over his skull.

“Please,” Crowley choked out, as Aziraphale pressed one finger inside him.

“That’s it, there you are,” Aziraphale breathed. “I’m not going to hurt you. Would never hurt you.”

Aziraphale readjusted himself on top of the demon, then positioned his cock at Crowley’s entrance. Crowley made a grunting noise of resistance, flapping his hands ineffectually at the bulk of Aziraphale, trying to push him off.

Something ancient and corrupted skittered through the caverns of his soul as Aziraphale fucked into Crowley, then, an easy slide given his current state.

“That’s right, that’s right,” Aziraphale breathed. It was right. A wrong was being righted. Only he belonged here, inside Crowley.

Crowley threw both arms over his face, one lanky forearm covering his eyes, and the flesh of the other arm between his teeth.

Aziraphale rocked back and forth, feeling the slick tightness of Crowley, tense with pain. He had never felt like this before, and never would again, if Aziraphale had anything to say about it.

Which he most certainly did.

Crowley mewled, a pitiful noise muffled as he bit down on his own arm. Aziraphale tugged the demon’s arms free, revealing his face. He leaned down to pepper Crowley’s sweat-damp forehead with kisses as he kept moving.

Perhaps it was the taste of Crowley on his lips, or the pleasure radiating out from his cock. Perhaps it was simply the inevitable tipping over of his whole self down, down, down into the lightless hollows that had been carved out over six purposeless millenia. But Aziraphale was now entirely overtaken by the hatred he had for what had touched Crowley; by his need to obliterate all that it had done.

“Get it all off you,” Aziraphale whispered as he licked at Crowley’s eyelids, nibbled on his earlobes. “Clean all that filth. I’ll fix it, fix you, make you all mine again.”

Crowley twisted at his waist, half rolling over to clutch and grab at the bedsheets as if to crawl away. But Aziraphale was having none of that.

“Come back, come here, come to me, you’re mine, all mine,” the angel murmured in a menacing cadence as he tugged Crowley’s body back into place, holding him down by his shoulders.

Something flashed in the demon’s eyes as he stared up at Aziraphale - was it hurt? resentment? anger? - and Aziraphale could have roared with rage. Always, the subjects of his protection, so ungrateful, so callous. Rejecting him, resisting his righteous attempts to keep them safe.

Adam and Eve, eating the fruit of the tree. Using his gifted sword for murder and war. Crowley, refusing his thank-yous, acting as if he had no need for Aziraphale’s care.

He wouldn’t have it. He would show Crowley just how badly he needed the Principality. He would remind him what happened when those Aziraphale meant to protect slipped out from under his watchful gaze.

“Is this what he did?” Aziraphale snarled, letting his whole weight fall on Crowley’s upper arms as he pinned him down? “Did he fuck you like this?” Aziraphale moved brutally, punishingly, against Crowley.

“Or is this how he took you?” Aziraphale pulled out for a second, then roughly flipped Crowley over, forcing the demon’s face down against the mattress. “Was it? Was it like this?”

Crowley was moaning, whimpering, trying to say something, so Aziraphale let up slightly, allowing the demon’s head to lift up.

“....’m sorry,” Crowley said, his words barely more than breath. “Sorry, angel, I’m sorry…”

“That’s alright,” Aziraphale soothed, his own fury dampened by Crowley’s surrender. “I’ll make it all better, I’ll fix it.” His words were punctuated by hard, quick thrusts, as he felt himself nearing climax. “Just a mistake, one little mistake, it’s over now, I’ve got you. Never let it happen again, I promise, promise.”

Crowley sobbed into the sheets as Aziraphale grunted, spilling into him. It felt good. Right. Cleansing. He reached down to feel the soddenness between Crowley’s legs, comforted by the presence of his own seed. “There we are,” he cooed, rolling onto his side and pulling Crowley to his chest. Crowley curled up tight, his spine hard like a river-worn pebble, small enough for Aziraphale to wrap his arms around entirely.

He would be as a great fortress, impenetrable walls, encircling Crowley, for now and forever.

***

Crowley woke the next morning, aching and dazed.

There was Aziraphale, the familiar bulk of the angel, snoring lightly in the bed next to him. There were twisted and soiled sheets, and a sticky chill on his thighs.

Memories came back to him then, of a demon with an old grudge, and then Aziraphale…

Crowley shook his head, wondering if it had all been a terrible dream. But he knew it was not. He had sensed this change in Aziraphale, tried to ignore it, told himself it was just an adjustment, some sequence of grief after being cut off from Heaven.

Now, though, he could see clearly how badly the angel had changed, how twisted his soul had become. Aziraphale was gone, and in his place was something too awful and terrible for even the Bible. Something had gone wrong in a way that could never be made right.

 _I didn’t turn into that, not even after I fell from Heaven,_ Crowley thought bitterly.

He slipped out of bed, wincing at the pain. Aziraphale hardly moved. Crowley stared for a while at the sleeping angel, his mind offering up all manner of vengeful options.

_Do it to him, see how he likes it. Manifest something really nasty, barbed and venomous. Shove it in while he sleeps._

But Crowley had no desire to touch the angel, especially not like that. He had never been less interested in anything than he was in raping Aziraphale this morning.

Instead, he turned and stepped into the bathroom. He slid off the remains of his tattered shirt, and his left sock, which had somehow remained on his foot. They made a sad little pile on the tile floor.

Another thought occurred to Crowley, then.

He looked in the mirror, at his his tear-stained cheeks and the hollows under his eyes. His hair hung limp and tangled around his face.

Crowley picked up a little pair of scissors he kept as part of a never-used shaving kit and lopped off most of his hair. Already, he looked fresher. Brighter. Newer.

He dropped the hair onto the pile of clothes. Then, for good measure, he bit at his thumbnail, tearing it off in a ragged half-moon, and tossed it in with the hair.

He cleaned himself up, then, turned the ravaged centers of his body into smooth, untouched, virgin flesh. Eliminated the darkness under his eyes, rosied up his cheeks. He felt his posture straighten, his old swagger return.

When Crowley tiptoed back into the bedroom, Aziraphale was still asleep. Deeply, peacefully asleep. He didn’t stir when Crowley snapped his fingers and replaced his clothing.

Down the hall was a painting, and behind the painting was a wall safe. Crowley tapped the keycode in and retrieved the single item he kept inside.

Carrying the tartan thermos into his study, he set it carefully down, then took a sheet of thick paper and a pen dipped in black ink and wrote a short note:

_Aziraphale,  
Thanks for all the help.  
Ever yours,  
C._

He carried the note and the thermos back through the bedroom, barely glancing at Aziraphale.

In the bathroom, Crowley set the note on the countertop beside the sink. Then he unscrewed the cap, his eyes watering at the nearness to holy water, and slowly, deliberately, poured it out onto the pile of clothes and hair, reducing it to a smoldering pool.

Crowley dropped the thermos and let it roll into a plausible resting place on the floor.

Then, without a look back, he snapped his fingers.

Crowley found himself - he thought, _Crowley had died in the London flat, and he would have to take another name._

The demon who had once been Crowley found himself in a poorly lit alleyway in the American city of Baltimore, beside a dumpster adorned with various street artist’s names, with hair a few shades blonder and an unfamiliar broadness in his chest.

He shook his shoulders out, adjusting to his new frame. Then he stepped out into the street, flexing his hands, curling his fingers into fists, ready for whatever might come.


End file.
